Wayne N. Miller August 7, 2022 I write this on the opening day of the 2022 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Leading up to this assembly there has been a significant movement to re-examine the entire structure and constitutional polity of the ELCA, largely motivated by a series of recent […]
Seabury-Western: A Different Way of Being a Seminary and Doing Theological Education
The world has changed dramatically and with dizzying speed in the past few decades. We’ve gone from being round to being flat again. We’ve seen the collapsing of hierarchies, the faltering of institutions and the myth of their permanence, and the exponential power of networks transforming not only our communication but also our mindsets. And […]
A Young Progressive Christian Reclaims Orthodoxy
Though the ink has barely dried, my excitement over the ELCA’s newly-minted Full Communion agreement with the United Methodist Church took a serious hit in recent days. I grudgingly admit that I cheered this agreement when it was passed and happily returned home, eager to share the Eucharist with my Methodist friends. As someone who […]
The Community of St. Francis: How It’s Doing and Being (A Sort-of Ethnography)
Prologue A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from my good friend and former pastor, Frank Senn. He began by asking if I remember Let’s Talk. Frank must have been grinning at that point, realizing that I have very fond memories of my association with this forum for living theology in the Metropolitan Chicago […]
“Church Renewal” — the Catholic Movement in the Church of Sweden.
In this paper I will try to describe what has been called the “high church” or “catholic” movement in the Church of Sweden. To be able to say something about the catholic movement in the C of S you have to survey the church history of Sweden, which is rather different from the church history […]
Concerning the Manufacture of Buggy-Whips
A few days after the news that Augsburg Fortress was canceling its pension program, I was at text study with colleagues more senior in ministry than I. There was no complaining or self-pity in the room, but there was palpable somberness. No honest, sane person has gone into Lutheran ministry with the expectation that it […]
A Different Way to Talk About Sex
It should not surprise anyone that the social statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust”, adopted by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 2009, did not settle the most presenting issue in human sexuality in our time: homosexuality. The statement itself acknowledged that the issue is not settled because it concluded that “There is no consensus in […]
Lutheran CORE: A Free-Standing What???
Ever since Lutheran CORE announced its intention to be a “free-standing synod” at its Convocation in September of 2009, folks have been scratching their heads trying to figure out what that phrase means. In the six months or so since that gathering, several assumptions have been made as to what Lutheran CORE must be up […]